How I Became Who I AM

The Story of My life and Challenges Thus Far...

Growing up in a small town where everybody knows everybody and the best restaurant in town just so happens to be the place where you can find the cheapest gas makes for some very interesting and unique experiences. However, this same environment that gives the greatest sense of community and affords you very unique freedoms can inhibit and hold you back in many ways not evident at first, but become painfully evident when trying to do something or get access to something that is seen as a given within other communities and schools. This may seem like a bad thing at first,  but in all actuality, it is this struggle for resources that drives me to strive for more. It is this lack of access that makes me try harder to work with what I have. It is this challenge that pushed me to become the hard working, resourceful, and grateful student that I am today.

The school I grew up in, up until recently, has never been what someone would refer to as a financially well off school. The simple fact is that we just did not have the tax base or population required to gain access to many of the technologies and resources taken for granted at the bigger schools that surrounded us. I can remember back to my 4th or 5th grade year still having computers that could not accept CD’s, allowing only floppy disks to be used, populating our computer labs. I can remember back to around my 7th or 8th grade year when our school district purchased our first 3D Printer, something that had been enjoyed years prior by surrounding schools. From my first days in kindergarten and first grade being a part of the Gifted and Talented program, I had been told about all of the technology we would soon get, technology that is just now starting to come my way. When I finally got to high school after getting through many years of sub-par advanced classes and opportunities, I was overjoyed to join our schools robotics team. I have been a part of this team for all of my years in high-school, with two of those years being the president of said club. It was easy to attribute our lack-luster program to our lack of funds, an excuse used by many other clubs and organizations that also happened to be starved for funds. However, that is not who I am, I won't accept that and give up. Also I would like to state that I am in no way attacking my school, in fact I love this school with all of my heart and it is the place that I have grown wiser in, and I would not change that for the world.

Rather than accepting the fact that we were going to lose to schools with a bigger budget, I dedicated hours upon hours of my free time after school, sometimes staying at the school until 9 at night, to making a robot that could compete with these bigger schools. I gave my all to every single robot we constructed, doing the absolute best with what I had access to. I believe it is this starvation of resources that actually helps me to become a better engineer and student in that, in this situation, I as a student have to work incredibly hard to get done what needs to be done. This pushed me to continue my studies and experiments in engineering outside of school. I have been fortunate enough to have gained access, through my very loving and supporting family, to a lot of resources such as a fully equipped shop where I was taught to weld, use our milling machine and lathe, and so many other essential skills that allow me to create anything I can dream as long as I put in the effort. I have created miniature working cannons, rc cars, working model engines, and so many other projects that are too numerous to name thanks to where I live and who I live with. I have had the ability to learn all there is to know about cars and engines due in small part to books but it largely stems from the information taught to me from my dad whom I am currently helping restore a 68 Chevy truck. This expansive and unique set of experiences and challenges that I have faced that I believe pushed me to become the hardworking, salutatorian-to-be, student that I am today.